The Cyber Alliance to Defend our Healthcare, which was formed by C5 Capital to bring together heavy hitters in the cybersecurity space to combat cyber attacks on healthcare systems during the COVID-19 pandemic, has today announced a host of new entrants into its ranks.

Leaders in the cybersecurity industry which are now part of the Alliance include ITC Secure, IronNet Cybersecurity, Haven Cyber Technologies, Enveil, 4iQ, Blue Cedar, Hazelcast, SAP NS2, Modex, Telos, OneVinn, TruSTAR, Privitar, Cynamics, The Global Cyber Centre by SOSA and Klaatu IT Security.

C5 says their combined experience and resources further enhances the Alliance's powerful industry response to an unprecedented series of cyberattacks on a healthcare sector already under huge pressure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The growing support for the Alliance underlines the strong collaborative nature of the cybersecurity sector,” says C5 Capital founder Andre Pienaar.

“With many of the world's leading cybersecurity experts now contributing their services and knowledge for free we have a powerful united front to combat cyber threats to global health organizations when they are already under immense strain as a result of this terrible pandemic."

Since launching the Alliance in March to provide free support to healthcare organisations, C5 Capital has seen a ten-fold increase in cyberattacks, such as ransomware, on the sector, adding an additional threat to already-overburdened hospitals, clinics and research facilities.

Similarly, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently warned that more than 25,000 email addresses from its organisation and others related to its operations – such as the UK's National Health Service (NHS) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US – had been compromised.

C5 says that through 'collective defence', members of the Alliance are working together to protect healthcare workers on the frontline of the epidemic.

"As the COVID-19 outbreak accelerates worldwide, threat adversaries are taking advantage of popular fears about the disease to spread malware that provides them access to sensitive personal and corporate data,” says IronNet Cybersecurity founder and co-CEO Keith Alexander.

“We must come together as one — through collective defence — to protect and defend global healthcare providers.

“They represent the front line of this crisis; as cybersecurity experts, we must work together behind the scenes to ensure reliability and continuity of service."

Much of the Alliance's work to date has focused on the onboarding of critical healthcare infrastructure to the C5 IronDome, which uses behavioural intelligence derived from cyber anomalies to detect potential threats.

Other activity has ranged from providing network compromise assessments and additional monitoring of core systems, to offering surge capacity to overwhelmed Security Operations Centers and providing Blockchain solutions to safeguard against ransomware attacks.

C5 says this work is helping to ensure hospitals and clinics protect their internal systems and databases for patients, healthcare workers and volunteers.

"Fighting this pandemic will require the meaningful use of data and resources from around the globe,” says Enveil founder and CEO Ellison Anne Williams.

“Privacy Enhancing Technologies can uniquely protect the privacy and security of these sensitive data assets, and we look forward to working with the broader Alliance to ensure such technologies are a foundational part of any solution."